Recovered chemical weapons

With appropriate funding, the Army estimates that the destruction of recovered chemical items can be completed within ten years, at a cost of 110 million. The Army believes that handling and disposing of recovered chemical weapons will be difficult as (1) they are more likely to have deteriorated than other nonstockpile materiel and (2) the identity of the agent is unknown in 25% of the weapons. The Army is studying several destruction options, including transportable incineration and neutralization systems. However, the actual method for destroying the recovered chemical weapons cannot be selected until after the Army completes the required technical and environmental studies. 

---

For over 70 years the U.S. has produced and stored chemical weapons. In addition to the military arsenal, there are also "non-stockpile" materials. Non-stockpile material includes buried chemical warfare material, binary chemical weapons, recovered chemical weapons, and former production facilities. Some of these materials date back to World War I development and production efforts. Not all of these sites are still under military control. For example, in 1993, a large number of World War I chemical shells were removed from a residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C. The burial site was discovered by construction crews while excavating the basement of a new home. In addition to non-stockpile materials, there have also been several situations where individuals have claimed to possess chemical munitions and threatened to release their contents. For these reasons, it would be beneficial to be able to rapidly identify suspect munitions. 

Incineration is a well-developed technology that has been shown to be effective for destroying stockpiled chemical weapons. At present, incineration is being used in Germany and the United Kingdom for destroying recovered chemical weapons. The U.S. Army and its contractors have developed very advanced and sophisticated incineration technology for the destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile. 

The baseline incineration process employed by the U.S. Army to destroy stockpiled chemical weapons that are in reasonably good condition is not useful for the destruction of non-stockpile chemical weapons because the deteriorated condition of the latter will not allow their disassembly with the existing equipment. The committee postulates that any use of incineration by the United States in the future for destroying recovered chemical weapons (other than, of course, the use of the currently operating baseline incineration facilities to destroy the U.S. stockpile) would be done only as a last resort in special situations and would be primarily for the destruction of agent stored in bulk containers or recovered from bombs and other weapons. 

In this chapter, the committee briefly reviews some other applications of neutralization and hydrolysis elsewhere in the world to provide historical perspective for the technology being used in the United States to destroy recovered chemical weapons, as described in Chapter 1. Detailed descriptions and evaluations of the Russian two-stage neutralization/ bitumenization process and incineration processes follow that review. 

Coordinating the transportation of recovered chemical weapons to locations for interim storage ... 

Destroying binary chemical weapons, miscellaneous chemical warfare material, recovered chemical weapons, and former production facilities in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, in compliance with public safety and environmental requirements and regulations, and in coordination with the potentially affected public and... 

There are certain chemical munitions, materiel, and facilities that are not specifically included in the U.S. stockpile of unitary chemical weapons (those containing a single lethal chemical agent). These items are referred to as nonstockpile chemical warfare materiel and consist of binary chemical weapons, miscellaneous chemical warfare materiel, recovered chemical weapons, former chemical weapon production facilities, and buried chemical warfare materiel. 

In 1993, the United States signed the U.N.-sponsored Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and the Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, commonly referred to as the Chemical Weapons Convention. The United States agreed to dispose of (1) binary chemical weapons, recovered chemical weapons, and former chemical weapon production facilities within 10 years and (2) miscellaneous chemical warfare materiel within five years of the date the convention becomes effective. If ratified by the U.S. Senate, the convention becomes effective 180 days after the 65th nation ratifies the treaty, but not sooner than January 13, 1995. Under the terms of the convention, chemical weapons buried prior to 1977 are exempt from disposal as long as they remain buried. In the United States, burial was... 

Recovered chemical weapons The locations and quantities are well-documented, but the inventory will change as additional weapons are recovered. The chemical fill of 25 percent of the weapons is unknown, and the weapons are likely to be in deteriorated condition. 6 0.11 10... 

Although the DAVINCH technology has been permitted to operate in Japan and in Belgium and has destroyed over 2,500 items of recovered chemical weapons materiel as of late May 2008, it has not yet been permitted to operate in the United States. Also, as is the case with the other EDTs, the DAVINCH has not had an opportunity to demonstrate an ability to destroy M55 rocket motors. 

In addition, the Chemical Weapons Convention (1993) mandates requirements for chemical demilitarization. Congress began that effort in earnest with the EY 1993 Defense Authorization Act (PL 102-484), directing the Army to identify the locations, types, and quantities of all non-stockpile chemical materiel, explain disposal methods, estimate costs, establish a schedule for their destruction, and discuss transportation alternatives. Nonstockpile CWM includes buried CWM, binary chemical weapons, recovered chemical weapons, former production facilities, and miscellaneous CWM. 

Nonstockpile chemical materiel includes all materiel not part of the chemical weapons stockpile, such as buried chemical weapons, recovered chemical weapons, binary chemical weapons, former production facilities and miscellaneous chemical materiel. 

Fishermen periodically recover chemical weapons and are burned through accidental exposure to sulphur mustard. This is because when sulphur mustard comes in contact with cold water a tarry substance forms around the exterior while the interior remains viscous over a period of many decades. The exterior consists mainly of precipitates derived from thickening agents (Fishermen then break open the crusty exteriors as they haul their catches into their boats and may then become exposed or contaminate their vessels as a result). The chemical composition of the tarry exterior is not well understood partly because it varies from case to case. Various polymer materials, such as alloprene and poly [methyl methacrylate] (PMMA), for example, were sometimes combined with sulphur mustard to lower its freezing temperature. Solvents such as chlorobenzene, have also been combined with sulphur mustard. Finally, sulphur mustard was often mixed with arsenic-containing agents, such as lewisite and diphenychloroarsine. 

---